Representative Course Review

On the 19th of October myself and around 25 other coaches from all across Australia came together in order to gain our level 2 coaching accreditation. We had the likes of Clint Auty who travelled down from QLD, Jake Fawcett from WA and Sasha Maloney from TAS. However, a special mention must go to Adam Chifo who travelled the furthest to be with us, he came from Zimbabwe!

This was a 5 day course so it gave me and all the other coaches plenty of time to meet one another and to forge some great friendships. For a self confessed cricket tragic like myself, it was amazing to be able to go around and chat to some fellow cricketer lovers. I learnt a lot by just simply listening to the likes of Dulip Liyanage (former Sri Lankan test player) and all of the other aspiring coaches talk. It was also great to be able to questioning them about their thoughts, theories and beliefs.

Over the 5 days we had a number of guest speakers come in and present to us. It was great for me and my fellow aspiring coaches to hear from people who specialise in specific fields/domains of the game. We were presented with a lot of information and I have no doubt that all of the coaches in the room learnt so much about themselves and how they can improve as a coach.

Simon Helmot was a crowd favourite. He is a man who is so passionate and enthusiastic about the game. He spoke to us about batting and we all got a lot from his presentation. The first shot we practiced was 'the ramp'… oh how the game has changed!

We also had some of our favourites from Jolimont Street (Cricket Victoria) come down to Camberwell to present. Neil Gray, Duncan Harrison, Tim McCaskill, David Hemp, Ross Gregory and Joey Rotundo provided us with valuable information/ideas which we could easily implement in our own training environments to improve the quality of our sessions.

We were also lucky enough to have two current players come in and chat to us about their respective skills. They were Australian & Victorian leg spinner Kristen Beams and Emma Inglis who is the Victorian wicket keeper. The girls were fantastic and extremely engaging. However, despite all of our best efforts, most of us still looked like baby giraffes behind the stumps even after Emma’s wicketkeeping masterclass! (That is no reflection of the coaching, it is more just that we were all quite uncoordinated!)

Personally, I love working with younger athletes and have always wanted to coach in the female pathway system. After attending this course I now feel I'm better equipped with tools, knowledge and skills to become a well rounded coach. I love coaching because it is satisfying; it allows me to give something back to the sport which has given me so much.

I would like to thank Cricket Victoria for hosting this course. Courses such as this one help mould cricket lovers into quality coaches. As a result, I believe the sport will only continue to go from strength to strength in the country if we can manage to keep educating and providing people with the opportunity to better themselves in the coaching domain.